Creation / Evolution

[artyemi]

there's this saying from somewhere.. things have have no beginning have no end.. but since the earth is approaching something like the end... i don't know what i believe.. i like evolution, but it doesn't explain how life can come from no life..

[Tone]

How does science explain conciences, mind, emotion, etc?

Last I heard they couldn't.

[Tone]

See I agree with you Arty... I think evolution happened... but I don't think that's how it started...

Humans are just too different and too unique than anything else on earth.

[COAD]

Here is someone who did their homework on Evolution vs Creationism.
Dont critisize me, Im just posting what I found. Its huge, but take the time to read it, it might change your opinions

Creation vs. Evolution

(based partially on information from Kent Hovind - [url]www.drdino.com[/url] )
(See also [url]www.icr.org[/url] )



Here we examine the scientific evidences for the 2 premier views of the beginning of the world, creation and evolution. We will see that the problems with the creation view are minor and not significant, while the problems with evolution are drastic and extreme.



1) For the creationist worldview, we approach this with the assumption that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. With this worldview, we take the viewpoint that the earth is approximately 6000 years old, and that about 4400 years ago a flood covered the earth.

2) The 2 worldviews:

a) Humanist, who says Man is God

b) Creationist, who says God is God

3) The 2 worldviews need to answer:


Evolution Creation
a) Who am I?
Dirt, protoplasm
Child of God

b) Where did I come from?
Cosmic accident
Creation of God

c) Why am I here?
No purpose, so I can have fun
Find out who God is, what He wants, and how to do it

d) Where am I going when I die?
Grave, dirt
To be with God


4) 2 evolutions:

a) Micro Evolution

i) Says dogs can breed new kinds of dogs, roses new kinds of roses.

ii) Observable, testable, Scriptural (Gen 1:24 “bring forth creatures after their own kind”)

b) Macro Evolution

i) Says dog and rose had common ancestor, a rock

ii) Is a religion, because it is based on faith, not science; it is a set of beliefs


Let’s begin to look at the evidences.


First Law of Thermodynamics, the “Law of Conservation of Energy”

c) No matter is created; all is conserved. You can neither create nor destroy matter.

d) Evolutionists say that 18-20 billions of years ago, all matter was condensed into a area no smaller than a period on this page (from Scientific American). It began to spin faster and faster, until it exploded, spewing out all matter into what has become our Universe. In fact, some speculate it came from nothing. Nothing produced something.

e) Evolutionists say “in the beginning, dirt…”. Creationists say “in the beginning, God…”.

5) Conservation of Angular Momentum

a) If an object is spinning, anything part of that object which leaves it will continue spinning in the same direction as the object.

b) If the Universe was created from the big bang, all objects resulting from that should be spinning in the same direction.

i) Venus and Uranus are spinning in the opposite direction as the other planets.

ii) (2 Peter 3:10 God’s big bang – “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise”)

6) Second Law of Thermodynamics

a) Entropy of an isolated system always increases with time. Entropy is the measure of the disorder or randomness of energy and matter in a system. Because of the second law of thermodynamics both energy and matter in the Universe are becoming less useful as time goes on.

b) The Bible agrees with this.

i) Hebrews 1:10-11 “And: "You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; And they will all grow old like a garment.”

Note that it is completely legal to teach Creationism in schools, as long as you don’t say God is the source. Beware to anyone who teaches evolution, where it will draw a child away from God.

Matthew 18:6 “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

You can’t know that the earth is billions of years old, you can only believe it.

7) Population of the earth

a) In 1985 there were 5 billion people on the earth

b) In 1800 there were 1 billion people on the earth

c) Based on knowledge of the numbers of people on the earth, you can graph it back. This graph shows that the earth began to be populated around 4400 years ago -- the time of Noah and the flood!

8) There are theories about the birth and evolution of stars. This has never been observed.

9) Saturn’s rings are moving out at a known rate. Saturn’s rings cannot be older than several thousand years.

10) The moon is moving away from the earth at a known rate. This means the moon used to be closer. The moon causes the tides on the earth, by its gravitational pull. The closer the moon is to the earth, the higher the tides. If you go back a million years, the moon would have been flooding the earth every day.

a) Some may say the moon cycles towards and away from the earth, but there is no evidence for this, and it is only a forced theory to support evolution.

11) Outer space is full of dust. The windows of shuttles have been scratched by this dust. Both the earth and the moon collect dust. It’s absorbed in the earth, based on winds, etc., but on the moon it just settles. When astronauts landed on the moon, since they expected the moon to be millions of years old, they expected the dust to be several feet deep. This is why the lunar lander had large snowshoes, and why the backpacks were made dustproof. The dust was only ½ inch deep. If you listen to the first 45-60 minutes of conversation after they first landed, most of it was discussing why there was so little dust. The moon collects about 1 inch of dust every 10,000 years, which would place the moon at 5-6 thousand years old.

12) The earth has a magnetic field, which is why compasses work. The magnetic field is growing weaker, which means it used to be stronger. If you go back a million years, the magnetic field would have been so strong that life could not exist.

13) You can’t date items based on Carbon-14, because it’s based on the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere, and that changes, especially based on the magnetic field on the earth.

14) The earth is spinning at a certain rate, but it is slowing down, about 1/1000th second every day. That is why standards clocks have a leap second every year and ½. So, the earth used to be going faster. If you go back 6000 years, a day was about 23 ½ hours long. If you go back millions of years, it would have been spinning at 5 times the current rate, and objects couldn’t remain on the earth.

15) Oldest objects

a) The oldest desert, the Sahara Desert, is only a few thousand years old.

b) The oldest barrier reef, the Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, is about 4200 years old.

c) The oldest tree is about 4300 years old.

d) There are no known items more than 6000 years old on the earth.

16) In the Arctic, there are layers of ice. Evolutionists show that the earth is millions of years old, based on a new layer being created each year.

a) 48 years ago a plane crashed on the ice. When they found it recently, it was 263 feet below the surface. It did not sink into the ice (it was still level). That calculates out to 5 ½ feet a year, with hundreds of layers being created in those 48 years. It turned out that each layer is created by a warming spell, not by seasons.

17) Some evolutionists point to how the Mississippi Delta is being created at a certain rate, and that would place the river at least 10,000 years old. But, when the delta was mostly created when the flood receded, and after that it grew at the current rate.

18) Reefs, with fish fossils, have been found high in the mountains, indicating that it was underwater. That matches the fact of the flood.

19) Oceans are getting saltier every year. The oceans are about 3.6% salt now. Based on the rate they are becoming salty, the oceans were fresh water about the time of Noah.

a) Scientists have proven that salt and fresh water fish can adapt to the other environment. One, over 10 years, slowly changed the salt content for each, and adapted fish from both environments to the ½-way point, of 1.8% salt content.

20) Some evolutionists point to how long it takes for stalagmites and stalactites to grow. They say it takes 1000 years for an inch to grow. Yet, under may recent sites (including under the Statue of Liberty), they have found giant ones, only 55 years old.

21) There are celestial objects known as “short term comets”, which only last 10,000 years. Why do we still have these comets? We can still observe these because the Universe is only 6000 years old.

22) The continents are drifting apart at a known rate. If the earth was millions of years old, the earth would be generally flat by now.

23) 2 Peter 3:3-7

3:3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,
3:4 and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."
3:5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
3:6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.
3:7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

[COAD]

24) Erroneous explanations of Genesis by some Christians

a) Gap Theory

i) Says that between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 there was a huge gap of time, where all the eras occurred, and when Lucifer fell.

(1) Exodus 20:11 says that the creation took 6 days.

(2) 1 Cor 5:12-22 says that death came because of sin. So, before sin there was no death. This theory would have to explain why for millions of years there was no death.

(3) Ezek 28:12,15 says Lucifer was in Eden, which was created after the second day.

(4) Gen 1:31, everything was very good. Lucifer hadn’t fallen yet.

b) Day Age Theory

i) Says that each day in Genesis 1 is an era.

(1) The third day (era?) plants were created, and the fourth day (era?) the Sun was created. This would mean the plants existed for an era without the Sun.

25) Three heavens

a) The sky (Gen 1:20)

b) Outer Space (Gen ??)

c) Where God is (2 Cor 12:2)
26) Human "missing link" discoveries

a) Nebraska Man -- it was only one tooth, and it was eventually proved that it was actually the tooth of a pig

b) Piltdown Man -- it proved to be a hoax, that someone had joined the bones from an animal and a man. 500 people earned their doctorates from it. It appeared in textbooks for 40 years.

c) Neanderthal Man -- they said since it was bent over it was a missing link. It was nothing more than an old man with arthritis.

d) Lucy -- 40% of a skeleton was found, the most complete found for that age. Yet, the knee joint of supposedly the same person was found 1 1/2 miles away. They say the Lucy's femur is angled. Tree monkeys have angled femurs. This was nothing more than a big chimp.

e) Footprints have been found, where entire man/ape bodies are drawn from it. Yet, no bones were found.

27) Life before the flood

Dinosaurs have nostrils the same size as a horse. The only way they could get enough oxygen is if the air pressure was much higher than it is today. In fact, trapped air bubbles have been found with 50% more oxygen than we have in the atmosphere today.

Before the flood, there was another atmospheric layer on the earth -- a layer of water or ice that covered the earth.

· Gen 1:7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.

· Gen 1:8 God called the expanse "sky." ...

This layer:

· Provided the water for the great flood.

· Dramatically increased the atmospheric pressure over what we have today.

· Blocked most of the harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

Let's look at what are the results of this, and at what are the evidences for this.

a) Years ago baby Jessica McClure fell into a pipe. It took many hours to free her. When they did, much of her body was black n' blue from the position she was stuck in. They expected to have to amputate more than one limb. Before they did, they placed her in a device called a hyperbaric chamber, which has pure oxygen at a pressure much greater than the atmosphere's. Within a few hours, she became so healthy that they only had to amputate one toe.

i) These are used to help patients with various illnesses, including stroke patients.

ii) NFL football teams used them to heal faster.

b) The increased atmosphere would allow people to run for hundreds of miles.

c) Plants would grow faster.

i) In Japan, a cherry tomato plant was raised protected from the UV rays. It grew to 16 feet, yielding 900 cherry tomatoes the size of baseballs.

ii) Later they tried again, and grew a cherry tomato plant 40 feet tall, yielding 15,000 tomatoes a year.

d) Some skeptics ask why we have so much coal (since coal is a result of plants). This is because before the flood, the plants were a lot bigger, healthier, and there were lots more of them.

e) The radiation from the Sun beats down on us everyday, whether we are inside or outside. This ages us quickly, shortening our lifespan. Before the flood, people lived for several hundreds of years (as the Bible records), some more than 900.

f) Before the flood, men grew bigger. An 11 foot skeleton was found. In Indiana, there was a 9' 8" skeleton found.

g) There was a skeleton found that some claim to be Noah. It is 12 feet long.

h) Many bones have been found that are huge, including shin bones and jaw bones.

i) Other large fossils found:

i) 18 foot tall rhinoceros

ii) Dragonfly with 3 foot wingspan

iii) Cockroaches 18 inches long

iv) 6 foot long centipedes

v) Grasshoppers 2 feet long

vi) Cattails 60 feet tall

vii) Beavers 8 feet long

viii) Sharks 80 feet long (to contrast, the shark in the "Jaws" movie was 25 feet long)

ix) Birds 13 feet long

28) Fossil evidences for a great flood

a) Huge amounts of fish bones found buried in the tops of mountains.

b) In South Dakota, thousands of sharks teeth have been found.

c) The sheer number of fossil beds in sedimentary rocks around the world point to a liquid global catastrophe.

d) In the western U.S., there are far too many land-dwelling dinosaur bones found alongside of aquatic animals to be the results of localized flooding.

e) Evidences for rapid burial:

i) In the Mount Blance 'red beds' of Texas, many closed-clams have been found. When clams die, they open up.

ii) As the same site, animal dung has been found, which would normally deteriorate.

iii) They have found tremendous mud flows, which are normally associated with massive flooding.

29) Dinosaurs

a) Reptiles are the only species that never stop growing. (Ask those who raise iguanas! They can grow 10 feet in length!)

b) Dinosaurs are nothing more than large lizards which lived before the flood, which lived for hundreds of years, and grew much larger than lizards can today.

c) Dinosaurs lived when humans did.

i) In Peru, human vertebrae were found with dinosaur skeletons.

ii) There have been at least 50,000 ancient stone drawings showing dinosaurs living with people.

iii) In Glen Rose, Texas, there is the Piluxi River. In 1908 the river flooded, exposing fossilized dinosaur tracks. This is now the Dinosaur Valley State Park. There you can see human footprints in the dinosaur footprints, and dinosaur footprints on human footprints. Additionally, the size of the human footprints are size 24, and the strides are 6 feet long, indicating the men were 10 feet tall (pre-flood!).

d) Dinosaurs were probably on the ark, but after the flood they did not live nearly as long, so they could no longer grow to the sizes they were pre-flood. There may still be dinosaurs alive today!

30) Aging based on layers of the earth

a) In supposed layers of the earth showing the ages, they have found trees straight up and down going through those layers.

b) They have found a clay doll 320 feet down, supposedly in the 10 million year old layer, long before humans supposedly existed.

31) Arrival of different species

a) The Bible says that God created all species, and outside of His creation no species have come into being. Throughout Genesis 1 the Bible says that the creatures were created each "according to its kind".

b) Evolutionists believe that each specie evolved from a common root, therefore, each specie evolved from a different specie.

i) There is no evidence of transaction between species.

ii) Because of this, evolutionists have postulated a jump theory, that each specie was birthed suddenly.

iii) If that is the case, this would require that for each specie, both a new male and female were suddenly birthed at the same time, and they came together and began to propagate.

32) Evolution teaches that animals evolved into more and more complex animals. Yet, the oldest animal fossils show the same complexity that exists today. E.g., fossils of 10 foot long salamanders show that their teeth have a high degree of development and complexity, beyond almost anything living today.

[artyemi]

well, coad, you haven't done enough.. if you're going to do research on that, you're supposed to take it from two sides, not present only the view of one side..

[nomas]

COAD, I know you didn't write it, but the research was clearly biased and I don't believe a lot of it. Where are these bones of an 80' shark? I just saw a discovery channel show on sharks and the biggest, pre-historic shark fossil they've found was no where near 80' long.

While science can't explain everything, it HAS dispelled a lot of myths previously held as fact, and I have no doubt that it will continue to do so during and after our lifetime. Besides..religion doesn't really have explanations for a lot of things, other than blind faith, and it is these very things that are later disproven:

when you have a near death experierience and you see a light at the end of a tunnel:

"That's the Lord opening the doors of heaven for you"

Right...up until science taught us:

"No, that's a chemical release"..it's provable. You can induce it, repeat the process and have it be true over and over. Repeatability = science.

[Tone]

Megalodon, a prehistoric shark, is the largest shark there ever was... the largest were said to measure 40-65' and weigh up to 65 tons.


(compared to Great White and human)

Imagine scuba diving out in the ocean and you saw one of these suckers..

[artyemi]

"Later, however, Burdick admitted that no such overlapping prints existed, and Morris and Whitcomb were forced to revise this portion of their text in the third edition." For the piluxi print...

kids, we must learn to evaluate our sources... if you google piluxi, or piluxy, all you get are mostly creationism websites...

[Junket]

All I know.

Is that I'll die pondering these same things drunkards and scholars alike have pondered centuries before my time.

In the end, it doesn't really matter.

[bluesummer]

I agree. It doesn't really matter. We should be more worried about preserving the damn planet than spending all this time and energy trying to figure out how it came to be (which we will likely never know anyway).

[whaywardj]

I know what the word means, but I am unsure why you used it.
And it is good to see you around again. (kisses)

Just an oblique way of saying it was just chance. Einstein put it nicely, I thought. He wondered whether God had any choice BUT to create the universe. (smooch)

[Junket]

Well I suppose if one were God there'd be nothin' to do but flex all that power.

[Late_vamp]

man , i always feel so confused about these issues , i never know what to truly believe , i want to have faith , yet science makes sense , but then fear of going to hell comes up , but then i feel like a sucker for missing out on so many things just because their not *right* ...You know , if it wasnt for the bible , saying at some point that if you kill someone , you wont be allowed in the kingdome of God , then i would have done it already . Seriously . I think that maybe the bible was just created to keep people in check , kind of like Nazy did , they kept the population in fear and thats how they became so powerfull .(im not saying , the bible and jesus God are bad BTW)

[Junket]

The puritans were hardcore into using fear tactics to keep the population in check.

Even when you look at medievil times and such, religious leaders had more influence than the kings and queens.